Charles XII

By Carl Klingspor

Two centuries ago when the kingdoms of Northern Europe were struggling for supremacy on the Baltic and control of the narrow portal to the sea, there appeared a young prince, the marvel of his age, who made himself the arbiter of these kingdoms and of their rulers. The military successes of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden even forced obsequious consultation from the greater nations beyond the fields of his conquest.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Publishdrive
• Release date: Jul 26, 2017

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2017

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

SWEDEN UNDER CHARLES THE ELEVENTH

THE YOUNG PRINCE

THE CALL TO THE THRONE

THE YOUNG KING

THE STORM BREAKS

NARVA AND THE SAXON CAMPAIGNS

THE OPENING OF THE POLISH CAMPAIGNS

THE ADVANCE AGAINST AUGUSTUS

CRACOW AND THORN

LEMBERG AND WARSAW

CHECKMATE FOR AUGUSTUS

INVASION OF SAXONY

ALTRANSTÄDT

THE MARCH TOWARDS MOSKOWA

POLTAVA

BENDER

THE FIGHT AT BENDER

THE KALABALIK

SWEDEN UNDER CHARLES THE ELEVENTH

I farans stund i stridens brand, hvad mod hos denna skaral! Hurkunde arma fosterland, du dock så àlskadt vara, En kàrlek få, så skőn så stark, af dem du nàrt med brőd af bark.1

In danger's hour, in battle strife What valor gave this band new life! How couldst thou, poorest fatherland, Receive a love so great, so grand, Such love from those whom thou hadst fed So meagrely with bark for bread! JOH. LUDWIG RUNEBERG.

I was a soldier of Charles the Twelfth. To have fought under him was to love him. And now in my old age, scarred and broken in health, I would gather together all I have of him in memory, in letters, and in my diary of the old days, and so write of my King that my children and their children might know and love him, and mayhap also cherish Sweden the more, and dream the better of the greatness that was hers. I know well that my brother-in-arms, the General Adlerfelt, has written fully of our King, and also the Doctor of Theology, and Pastor Jöran Nordberg has written full truthfully and at length of our deathless leader. Still, there is much that now leads me to grasp my quill. I feel I know him better than all others. Did I not serve his father before him? And did I not look into his face that awful moonlight night below the cliffs of Fredriksten? It is easy for me to confess that so great a theme deserves a great writer, and that there doubtless are many others who, with clearer knowledge in military matters as well as those of State, could more fittingly relate both one thing and another and tell it with more taste and fancy. The great heart of his blessed Majesty the King, his doughty actions, his even temper and nobility alike in good and ill fortune, not only astonished the whole world, but won the veneration of friends and enemies alike. Yes, so much so, that Germans, Frenchmen, Englishmen, Dutchmen, and even foul and villainous Muscovites, have been more than eager to impart to the public as much knowledge as they could glean in regard to His Majesty's life. It would seem that a mere sense of propriety must show the unbecomingness of leaving the great King's name without the proper honor and commendation in Sweden and in his mother tongue. And therefore I shall busy myself not only to tell the whole exact truth, but also to purge His Majesty's memory of every malevolent and belittling vilification which thoughtless or ignorant foreigners have sought to cast upon it. I trust he will forgive me if I at times perforce see Sweden's poverty and misery wrought by the necessity of his housekeeping. Would to God his glory and her good fortune might have gone hand in hand! As I turn to my diary I rejoice that it so often was my custom, as it was that of many of my companions, to write down what the King had said during the day, where we were camping, or how we had fought. How constantly have I not seen Gyllenkrook and Klinckowström and Bjelke and Creutz thus occupied before they lay down to sleep! I am happy in that I copied so many of his letters, and that I own numerous papers of His Excellency the Highest Marshal and Prime Minister Count Piper, the Field Marshal Count Rehnsköld, as well as the Secretary of State Hermelin. They will be of great use to me to refresh my memory for my labor of love. No less valued are those of the chief interpreter Amira purchased from Constantinople, telling of much I knew not, that passed between King Charles and the Turkish Court. These are translated from Latin to Turkish or from Turkish to Latin with small marginal notes in the Italian tongue, all illuminating those strange days. So I have much that will assist me. God grant that what I write may spread the everlasting glory and honor of my late beloved Master, Charles the Twelfth, King of Sweden.

Now, before I come to the very heart of my work, my hero himself, I would show how wide-stretched the land he governed, how illustrious were his ancestors, and how noble his inheritance from parents and warriors; I would also cast a glance upon the Kingdoms of Europe as they were in my youthful days when they were the world into which the royal babe was born.

The history of Sweden has been the history of her Kings since Gustavus the First, of the Vasa line, laid strong and deep the foundations of our nation's life. With the fall of the greedy German merchants that be. lieved their fleets should command all the harbors and seas of the earth, Sweden could look beyond her Scandinavian quarrels. After the Hansa were surely crushed, we dared once more sail across the Baltic and by little and little advance inland from the shores--Charles the Ninth paved the way for the glorious preserver of our Protestant faith. How often has the spirit stirred within me as I have stood before his Chapel under the vaults of the Riddarholm's Church and read:--

In angustiis intravit:

Pietatem amavit:

Hostes prostravit:

Regnum dilatavit:

Suecos exaltavit:

Oppressos liberavit:

Moriens triumphavit.1

He entered [upon his work] amid difficulties: He loved piety: He laid low the public enemy: He enlarged the borders of his kingdom: He made his Swedes great: He freed the oppressed: And even in death he was victorious.

When Gustavus Adolphus ascended the throne in 1611, his kingdom consisted in reality of but a portion of Sweden as well as Finland. The richest southern provinces, Halland, Scania, and Blekinge all belonged to the Danish King. But see what new lands were the heritage of Christina after they brought his body home from that sad but glorious field of Lützen, and the honorable peace of Westphalia had ended that war of thirty long years! She was Queen of Sweden by glorious descent, of Esthonia and Livonia, Carelia and Ingria by the humbling of Muscovy and Poland, of the Island of Rügen and Usedom, the wealthy City of Stettin, the Isle of Wollin and rich portions of Pomerania by the defeat of Brandenburg, of Wismar taken from Mecklenburg, and of Bremen and Werden from the Empire. As ruler of these broad stretches of German lands she took her seat and gave her vote as a Princess of the Empire whenever grave matters disturbed the council halls of the Diet at Regensburg. Charles the Tenth, who followed her, again struck terror in the heart of Poland, wrested from Denmark the southern provinces of the Peninsula and rich Baltic Isles, and did not pause until he had made the Baltic almost a Swedish sea under the blue and yellow cross floating from the battlements of its shores. Such were the broad lands that became the patrimony of Charles the Eleventh, such the links for him to weld together into a mighty Swedish chain,--and he did so gloriously,--leaving but one tongue, one law, and one rule.

The German Emperor, who had perforce bitten deep into the sour apple when he was forced to affix his imperial eagle to the Peace of Westphalia, was now no better off, distracted as he was between western foes and the innumerable hordes of Turks and Tartars seething in unrest at his southeastern gates. His Empire, with its endless quarrelsome dogs of small and large breeds, was ever a battleground. Woe unto the Prince who is down, for his enemies fall upon him as do the hounds upon the wounded game. The much-involved political disputes in German lands went even beyond the comprehension of our own astute Bengt Oxenstjerna. Every grave matter of State, whether it pertained to Spain or Sweden, England or Hungaria, must there be brought up and settled anew.

The Empire was the great market of mercenary troops and an open field for every fight. He who would prevail in Europe must swear the loudest, march the hardest, and shoot the truest within the borders of the Holy Roman Empire, and the Protestant likes neither the sly venom of the Hapsburg nor the honey of the Jesuit. Sweden was responsible for part of it all as one of the Estates of the Realm. And thereto, since the Elector of Brandenburg had abandoned the only and true faith for Calvinism and the Elector of Saxony had foully turned Papist, the King of Sweden was as of old, in Gustavus Adolphus's days, looked up to and revered as the first lord and protector of the Lutheran faith.

Would that the Swedish statesmen had seen the danger in all this! Blind to their nearest interests, like the German Emperors of old faring south to Italy, the Scandinavian kings wasted their strength on the southern plains of Germany when they should have conspired to make a strong union between the northern kingdoms. The power of Brandenburg was rapidly growing. Wisely had she thrown in her fortunes with the victorious armies of Charles the Tenth, and received East Prussia in reward. Soon, under his great-grandson, was she to covet the royal crown. England was mistress of the seas and need no longer fear the white sails of her Dutch rivals.

She had become the first sea power in Europe, and her new monarch, William the Third, was weighty in the European councils, only second to him they called le roi soleil. Now that the House of Orange, glorious in its annals, ruled on both sides of the Channel, England and the Dutch traders could plot and fight, as well as buy and sell, as one nation.

The great Polish-Lithuanian republic of nobles was misruled to an ideal extent, while France stood alone proud and politic.

The Electorate of Saxony, the only stronghold of German Protestantism, was not only one of the stoutest, best populated, and most unified States of Germany, but also most highly developed in material as well as intellectual matters. Augustus the Strong, so soon to fix the attention of all Swedish eyes, was the reigning monarch, and through the abandonment of his faith, the pawning of his lands, and the coining of false money, he was able to purchase votes sufficient to defeat every other pretender to the royal throne of Poland.

Too long did we waste our contempt and our jests upon the Muscovite barbarians, and liken their Tsar to the ferocious rulers of China and Abyssinia of whom travelers into those far regions had brought us strange accounts. The boors sent as Ministers from the Court of Moskowa, we could not feast at our tables, nor entertain in our halls, nor use for aught else but to encourage their master, like the mighty Shah of Persia, to wage war against the infidel. Despite the slyness of the Tsar, we took not seriously his political scheming; nor did any power, but Sweden, find it worth its while to waste a couple of months in sending the Ambassadors in return to the Muscovite Court.

Two momentous questions attracted the attention of all Europe. Charles the Second, the last Hapsburg King, was soon to die, leaving unoccupied the Spanish throne. The Spanish provinces must as a consequence either be divided or given to a French or Austrian prince. Charles had bequeathed the whole of the possessions of the Spanish monarchy to Philip of Anjou, the second grandson of Louis the Fourteenth. The Turkish wars must soon come to a close and the conquered provinces be divided amicably or by quarrel. Weighty interests were at stake and thunder-clouds were gathering in the East and West.

Charles the Eleventh reigned in Sweden. He was a great King, patient and inclined to quiet rule. Many a time did he impress upon me the need of our country for peace, peace at any cost except honor. He was a painstaking master-builder, though the blocks given over to him by his ancestors fitted ill together. His eyes were privily set against the rich. His hand was hard and heavy, and loud were the murmurs of the nobles, but the course he followed was necessary for Sweden's weal. He surely saved her from the fate of France and the selfish rule of the landowners, nobles grown rich after the Thirty Years' War through constant gifts of property from the Crown. One by one he made them disgorge the enormous revenues accumulated through their great estates, however proud the family name. Well might they think it an earthquake. Money poured by lawful means into the royal coffers, and the peasants, tilling patiently the earth in the sweat of their brow, need no longer feel the terror of earlier persecutions and levies. And in how many other ways was he not most truly the father of his country? We who have fought in his and his son's armies know well how wisely they were formed from our peculiar peoples drawn from different provinces and countries. What monarch before him has left forty-five men-of-war with twenty-six hundred cannon, or a naval fortress equipped like Karlskrona? His Ministers did well to become his faithful servants whom he could consult or not as he pleased, for none of them could have counseled him better how to leave coffers well filled. See the witches he destroyed, and the piety he instilled into all, rich or poor; whether hiding in smiling valley or thick forest the sorceresses were tracked by his diligence and burned by the dozens, saving innumerable souls from the devil and the young from their pernicious example. Religion flourished once more. From the high tower of the three crowns in Stockholm holy music gladdened the people, and many a new church bell spread its joy over the countryside. I can still clearly see the day we celebrated the centenary of Upsala, meeting with candles in all church windows, as at Christmas matins, and with music and songs of praise, as of an Ascension Day evening. Even the hearts of the Huguenots that had just come to us from far-off Rochelle leapt at the sound of the sacred tones. Verily no King could do more for his country than he did. To know the necessities of his subjects, I have often seen him walk through the streets and marketplaces without any one's suspecting who it was until some swift act of justice was done. This he would order even to the punishing of his soldiers. Thus, one of them had been catching slyly after nightfall the dogs in the narrow streets by the palace walls to sell their meat for that of the roebuck. The King himself put the iron collar around his neck in the market-place and ordered that a dog's head be hung upon his breast. There the rascal stood until his feet for fatigue gave way under him and he fell and choked to death. So swift and just in his judgment was Charles the Eleventh. But his justice was also tempered with mercy and true concern. Instead of swiftly punishing the thief with death, he had his Councilors decree that he should be sent to a house of discipline where he was afforded work in proportion to the villainy of his theft and might wear a crown of iron on his head surrounded by bells proclaiming, wherever he went, his crime. Ungrateful, indeed, were the supplications that reached the King praying for hanging instead of such penance.

His religion was a matter of grave moment to him in all his affairs. My first memory of him is a searching examination in it to which he subjected me the day I came to Court. I have since thought that I might have been admitted Doctor of Divinity by virtue of it, for indeed my father had drilled me well. He (I mean my father) had been all his life at the Court, as I have been since, and I cannot remember the time when I was not destined to that service. In preparation for it, from the time when I could first speak, my memory was constantly exercised in the catechism and all matters of religion. I cannot recall that any other preparation was considered necessary to it, though, of course, I was taught other things as all boys were, particularly such history and exercise of arms as were suitable to my age.

I saw His Majesty more than once examine others who were entering his service, not only those who were to be about his person and about the Court, but even the common soldiers in his army. In inspecting a regiment, if his eye fell on a new recruit, he would as like as not command him to step forward out of the rank and put him through an examination in religion in the presence of his comrades. Nor was this an idle form, for any conspicuous failure might mean the rejection of the recruit. Nor did he ever forget, if the test were well endured, to commend or reward the recruit according to his endeavors. And I think that it was this practice which made his army the God-fearing one which was the fear and scourge of his enemies. Nay, further, if it was he who saved Sweden from drifting without rudder or sail upon the troubled sea of European politics, I think it was this steadfast religion of his which was his guide through it all, but there was practical worldly care with it too. Of money he was ever heedful, not miserly for its own sake, but enough so that his coffers were sufficiently well filled to let him disregard both French gold and French advice, which last, at least, was abundantly offered him by Count d'Avaux.

This was no small part of the strength that he left to Sweden when he was gathered to his fathers, for in fact, money was a sore need with us. More than that, he left the nation cleared of many of the sad misunderstandings with other nations which had so darkened her prospects. And when he left us, we stood a military power in the first rank, ready to meet our coming fate. This strength and position, I for one verily believe, he won for us by standing as absolute monarch in his realm.

No more than the light shed by the sun is increased by a candle, can my poor quill add to the renown or the love borne his Queen Ulrica Eleanora, by Swedes and Danes alike. Her gentleness and charity will ever shine in the pages of Sweden's history. To speak her name was to whisper a prayer, and the blessings of the people followed her wherever she went. Truly the great preacher in likening her to a lily of Eastertide hit upon a comparison that was ever afterwards cherished in the hearts of her subjects. Wherever she trod, flowers sprang up in her footsteps. What understanding or steadfastness could be compared to hers? What obedience did she not show? Indeed she was as perfect a wife as queen. Having, when but a child, promised her hand to our gracious sovereign, never once did she allow herself to be dissuaded during the wars that raged between Sweden and Denmark. True to her plighted troth, she was at last rewarded by the hand of our Charles and the crown of the Swedes, the Goths, and the Vends. Verily, as the Psalmist says, The kings of armies became reconciled, and he that tarried at home divided the spoil. Like the swallows returning in spring, the galleons of Niels Juel flew across Öresund bringing her here to nest among us. Almost every year she was brought to bed with a royal child, many of which, alas, were borne to the grave before her. Because she was being such an example of all Christian and royal virtues, the King graciously permitted her to have the care of her children in much and many things, and he ordered her especially to implant in their hearts the piety and obedience she herself so admirably showed. Few times in her life did she give her royal spouse just cause to upbraid or reprove her. Only once do I remember King Charles turning on her publicly his royal indignation. The cries for pity from starving people were rending the air of Stockholm, and the Queen Ulrica had given her silver and her jewels: yes, even her costly silks and damasks from out of her wedding chests. But when she had no more to give, her thoughtless womanly heart caused her to appeal to the King and to counsel him. I can still hear his stem reproof, I took you unto me to bear children, not to offer advice; and the good Queen took the just censure in humility and understanding.

Her happiest hours were spent, without a doubt, when she, with her consort and little children, could go on a quiet excursion to some country seat or enjoy wild strawberries and milk in the park of the Humlegård.

Otherwise, all I can recollect and say of this excellent and gracious lady is that in Stockholm many a house of comfort for the miserable and destitute bears eloquent and silent testimony to her tender heart. Angels seemed through all her life, as at the death of some God-fearing persons, to be whispering and ministering to her. After my gracious Lady's health began failing, she was wont to retire to the Castle of Carlsberg, where she would mourn over the babes she had seen carried to their early graves. There it was that red spots began to appear on her body, so that in agony of soul she begged to be carried in her chair to the altar of the palace chapel in order to confess her sins and receive the blessed peace that comes with the administration of the Holy Communion.

In the summer of the year 1693, her weary body finally succumbed, and though her dear heart was sore within her at the thought of leaving her little children, she seemed to those of us near her not unwilling to exchange this earthly dress for the spotless raiment of Heaven. After thanking her royal spouse, who was not to be comforted, for his grace and favors, and embracing her children, she received the Holy Sacrament, and in the Castle of Carlsberg, in a blessed moment, breathed her last, thirty-six years, ten months, fifteen days, and fifteen minutes old, returning unto the hands of her Saviour the soul which He had purchased with His precious blood. Her dying request was that her crown and jewels might not be buried with her, but that she might be laid to rest with neither pomp nor ceremony and her money given to the poor. This King Charles, for his honor's sake, could not well grant, but he wept at her funeral for four hours without ceasing and vowed he left in her tomb half his heart. In the city no black cloth could be found; the poor in their grief had purchased it all. This Queen of blessed memory left from her wedlock three children behind her, their royal highnesses Prince Charles, Princess Hedvig Sophia, and the Princess Ulrica Eleanora.

Before closing my description of this excellent royal couple, I would give the verse written by a poet and sent among friends until the children had learnt it by heart, and it reads:--

Good-will among neighbors, a well-ordered house,

Were his manly care.

A lamp of all virtues his excellent spouse,

A lady so rare,

Among women well praised,

She was pious and chaste,

Kept her house without waste:

And memory fain

Will outlive these twain,

While the world remain.

THE YOUNG PRINCE

THE babe whose sword was to flash lightning under European skies was born at a quarter before eight in the morning of June the seventeenth, 1682, 5631 years after the creation of the world according to the opinion of the learned Doctor Scaligeri. That a glorious but bloody reign was prophesied was easy to read from the signs and portents on earth and in the sky. At the moment of birth the little fox was setting in the west, while in the eastern firmament rose the shining star of the little King or the Lionheart. The ladies-in-waiting wiped blood off the hands of the babe, while in the palace courtyard so furious a storm was raging that the copper and tiles were thrown from the roof to the cobble-stones of the courtyard. Stupid and dull indeed would he be who from these signs could not plainly recognize the coming of a glorious but bloody reign. The consequences of his birth did thus allow us, of the Court, to suppose that extraordinary influences affected the birth. After King Charles the Eleventh's death I copied certain portions of his diary for use in this my writing, and on this selfsame glorious day I find this entry: To-day, Saturday morning, my consort was delivered of and bore me a son. Eternal praise and glory be to God who hath helped her and may He likewise help her to her former health again for my Kingdom needs more heirs.

The day is one which I shall long remember, especially the evening of it. That afternoon I had ridden through the streets that lie between the palace and the market, and though my mind was then filled with the event of the day, I saw nought to make me think that the citizens had as yet taken note of it: but at nightfall, when I came off duty, I walked out from the palace to observe the rejoicing of which the sounds had already begun to reach us within. Then I saw the daytime quiet changed into a veritable riot of joy. At that time I had not yet seen service in war and knew not, so well as I know now, what the sack of a city looks like, but my first thought as I looked down toward the market was that it was as if the city were being pillaged and burned by an enemy, for in every street opening out of the market-place, people were swarming, all laden as if with pillage or as escaping with their household goods. Many were carrying fuel for the great bonfire which was already blazing in the center as high as the eaves of the houses. Others were rolling casks of red wine or white, which were speedily horsed and broached, and as speedily emptied with shouts, and singing and dancing. So was it in front of every church; and before the house of every noble stood a cask around each of which danced the crowd, circle within circle, till one was dizzy watching them, whether one had aught of the wine or not.

By and large, it was a wholesome mirth, too, for I saw few that were drunk, and few unseemly acts, though here and there a little, which I will not set down now to the disparagement of our good burghers who are as upright as any. A few quaint sights I saw which it would be sport to tell of, but I will not. And it is written that there was not a village in the realm of Sweden in which the glad occasion was not celebrated, each in its degree after the same manner by all its inhabitants who cherish virtue and love God. Cannon and guns roared as if in war, and everywhere joy fetes were held and bonfires lighted. A new star had arisen in the north like the one seen over Bethlehem by the wise men of old.

The gentle Queen, though then fast sinking in health, was allowed to superintend the education of Prince Charles until he could walk and talk, nay, longer, as I recall, until he began to lose his first teeth. And it was while he was still under her guidance that I saw him first--indeed, there were scarce more than two years of his whole life that I was not by his side during most of his waking hours, or at least within his call. It was not many months after his second birthday that I was commanded to court as a page, I being then just turned twelve years. How it came about that I was so summoned, being nothing to the purpose, I will omit relating. Near as I had always lived to Stockholm, and in spite of my father's long service with the old King, not to mention my mother's rank and position, I had never seen the royal palace, or a royal person. I know not well what I expected to see, but I still remember my surprise to find the royal palace and household so like my father's house.

I was easily admitted, and without ceremony, to an anteroom where a comely enough young woman was sitting watching a child tumbling about on the floor.